“I sure hope not, Lieutenant. I was still trying to figure out the old one.”
He rode along with her in the chopper, which airlifted her directly to Middlesex Hospital up in Middletown, where they had a helipad and fully restored electrical power.
He was by her side when they took her into the emergency room. He was by her side when they wheeled her into surgery. It was only then that Mitch let them perform an X ray and cat scan on his own bean. He was okay-no skull fracture. A nurse tidied his scalp wound for him and dressed it rather elaborately. She also cleaned up his bloodied, swollen nose and gave him a couple of Advil for his headache.
He reached out to Bella on Des’s cell phone to let her know what had happened to her roommate. Bella was very upset by the news. For some strange reason, she was also really abrupt with him on the phone, Mitch felt.
Then he sat and waited. They wheeled her out of the operating room four hours later. He was with her when they moved her from the recovery room to a private room, an IV in her good arm, her broken, bandaged arm secured within an external titanium frame. He stayed with her all night, dozing in a chair next to her bed. She finally began stirring at about four in the morning. She came out of her drugged haze slowly, gazing around at her surroundings uncomprehendingly.
“Hey, tiger,” he exclaimed, grinning at her. “How are you feeling?”
“All depends…” she responded hoarsely, blinking at him. There was hallway light coming through the open door. “You… wearing a turban?”
“That’s how they dress head wounds. The nurse said I could take it off tomorrow.”
“What am I wearing?” she wondered, peering at her titanium frame in bewilderment.
“It’s the latest thing. All of the chic New York women swear by them.”
“Wha…?”
“You actually want a straight answer, don’t you? They can’t use a plaster cast in a case like yours, where you have deep flesh wounds. No way to tell if they’re healing right if your arm’s stuffed inside a cast. That’s what the nurse told me, anyway.”
“Incredibly glad…”
“Glad?” He frowned at her. “How come?”
“We’re not in that damned castle anymore.”
“I’m with you there, Master Sergeant.”
The attending physician was an alert young Asian woman. As the sky outside the hospital room window began to fade from black to the purple of pre-dawn, she told Des that the bullet from Jase Hearn’s. 38 had not only shattered a bone in her right forearm but had torn through the muscles, ligaments and nerves to her hand. The good news was that the orthopedic surgeon and neurosurgeon believed they had successfully put her back together again. Screws had been inserted in the bone, the damaged nerves repaired. She would have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, hooked up to intravenous antibiotics and painkillers. Once she was sent home, her arm would have to be immobilized for at least ten weeks. Then there would be extensive rehab. But she should fully recover in time, the young doctor said confidently.
“Still can’t wiggle my fingers,” Des said, the worry showing in her eyes.
“You’ve sustained serious nerve trauma, Trooper. It takes time for the feeling to come back.” The doctor took a safety pin out of her pocket and opened it. “Tell me if you feel anything when I do this…”
“Nothing,” Des said glumly when she’d been poked in the pinky finger with the pin. “Still nothing,” she reported after the doctor tried her ring finger.
“How about this finger…?”
“A tingle, maybe.”
“And this one…?”
“Ow!”
“You’re doing fine,” she assured Des with a brilliant smile.
Relieved, Des immediately fell back to sleep.
Mitch took a cab home-his truck was still up at the castle. The roads from Middletown to Dorset were well plowed and sanded. The driver had heard on the radio that most of the electricity in the state had come back on in the night. A warm front was moving in. It was supposed to be a sunny, balmy forty-five degrees today.
And maybe the weatherman would even be right this time.
Peck’s Point had been plowed all the way out to the gate, Mitch was happy to see. He had his driver drop him there. Then he stepped his way carefully across the battered, snow-packed wooden causeway to his island home, feeling as if he’d been away for two months.
Big Sister had taken a definite pounding. A weeping cherry had come down on Bitsy Peck’s covered porch. The fine old oak tree out front of Dolly Peck’s had split right down the middle, landing this way and that in her driveway. The private dock where Evan Peck kept his J-24 tied up each summer had been smashed to pieces by the floating chunks of ice that the angry surf had brought crashing in. But no power lines were down and no houses had taken structural hits. It was all damage that could be dealt with in the weeks ahead, just as the causeway could be dealt with. Standard winter wear and tear when you lived out on an island in the Sound.
Although there was one very important lesson that Mitch had learned from this experience: The next time he saw a burnt orange sunrise in February he would not wonder if it was a good omen. Rather, he would bar the door and hide under the bed.
His carriage house had lost several of its roofing shingles to the wind, exposing the reddish, nearly new-looking cedar underneath. The little apple tree he’d planted in the fall had been uprooted. Otherwise, the place looked okay. And Mitch heard absolutely the most wonderful sound when he went in the door-the steady thrum of his furnace. The power was back on. It was still very, very chilly in the house, but his faucets ran normally. He would have to make his rounds later on just to be certain, but if his own pipes were okay, then the chances were that everyone else’s would be, too. His house had the least amount of insulation on the entire island.
Clemmie and Quirt were cold, hungry, lonely, indignant, pissed off and terribly in need of petting and snuggling and more snuggling. Not a crumb of kibble was left in their bowls. He put down fresh kibble and treated each cat to an entire jar of their Beechnut Stage 1 strained chicken with broth. According to Des, baby food was much better for them than canned cat food. No artificial ingredients, no additives-just chicken. Clemmie and Quirt couldn’t lick their way through enough of it.
He got a big fire going in the fireplace. Cranked up his coffeemaker. Logged on to his computer. Ada Geiger’s death had made its way onto the news wires. Mitch’s editor at the paper, Lacy Nickerson, had already e-mailed him three times about it. He e-mailed her back, promising her a piece about the legendary director by day’s end. A large, comfortably aged pot of American chop suey was waiting for him in his refrigerator. He put it on the stove to warm while he jumped into a scalding-hot shower, a plastic shower cap of Des’s carefully positioned over his bandaged head. He shaved off his itchy stubble, climbed gratefully into clean, dry clothes and shoveled down three man-sized portions of his favorite sustenance. Then he poured himself a mug of coffee, topped it off with two fingers of chocolate milk and sat back down at his computer, gathering his thoughts on Ada.
That was when Yolie Snipes phoned to say she was on her way over with something near and dear to him. He hoofed his way across the causeway to meet her at the gate when she buzzed. It was his beloved Studebaker pickup that she’d brought him. His truck and a pair of envelopes-a large manila one for Des, an Astrid’s Castle letter-sized envelope for him. Inside his he found a check for $320 made out in his name and signed by Aaron Ackerman. There was a scribbled note enclosed:
I would very much like a chance to win this back the next time you re in D.C.-Aaron
Somehow, Mitch doubted he’d be taking Acky up on the offer any time soon.
“I take it you folks managed to dig your way out,” he said as he drove Yolie back toward Astrid’s.